Evaluation of Final Product

Camera-work
I feel that the camera work in some parts of the short film is smooth however there are a couple of errors. At the beginning the characte
r I play is walking away from the youths and it jumps a tiny bit which highlights different lighting and a slightly different angle. One of my favourite camera shots was at the middle of the DepicT video where the geek in the red coat is slowly tracked by the camera, the shot is smooth and is displayed nicely. At all parts of the video all characters are seen visibly.

Editing
The editing of the short I think was well done due to the group editing the footage straight after we'd shot each scene. This gave us enough time to edit the particularly parts which we felt need to be worked on. The best piece of editing the group decided was the credits of the film. We used the comic which was given to the old man by the girl. This linked the credits with the actual concept within the video, photo-shop was the programme which we used to edit the writing onto the magazine and increased the speed of the shots from text to text. Also the slow motion after each good deed is done adds to the nice effect which we planned to create

Mise-en scene
Overall, we did not not need many props or costume. This worked to our advantage as we didn't need to purchase anything in particular as we already owned the items which were needed. These items consisted of: a blazer, a white shirt, a fleece, hoodies, shoes, glasses, maltesers wrapper, lunch-box, apple, wallet and a backpack. These items of costume and props added to the films authenticity and created a realistic product. The lighting of the footage which we shot I believe was clear and easily visible, this helps the viewer have a higher understanding of the film. I also felt that the performance overall was authentic for example the facial expressions and body language of the geek walking away from the gang at the beginning of the story. However certain parts lacked authentic characterisation for example the middle scene with the young girl. She comes across older and less happy than we had planned prior to the shooting.

Sound
The sound throughout the video is clear and can easily be heard. I believe the story is well scripted and we learn enough about the characters but not too much so the viewer become overwhelmed with information. Due to this we included a decent amount of dialogue but not too much. Although at one point at the beginning of the second scene starring the geek and the girl, there is the slight ambient sound of the wind then its cuts off to no sound at all. I feel this slightly decreased that scenes overall affect which we were trying to create. The music choices which we included in our 90 second clip was well chosen and fit in nicely with the action on the scene, an example of this is where the geek played by me walks away nervously haven been given back his wallet by these rough looking youths. The cheesy yet entertaining music is comforting adds a nice warm feel to the moment as I do the heel kick.

Things that have been learnt and need to do/not to do next time
I believe that this task has given me the opportunity to learn a lot. When told about the DepicT competition and was given the task I felt is was too broad. I didn't think I would be able to come up with a good idea. Then I thought it would be nice to do a story about doing nice things, I thought the concept was different and had a lot of potential. I have learnt that you may not come up with a great idea at first but if you keep at it and believe in things its possible to create almost anything. The independence which was employed onto us helped me really think for myself and shoot the scene with confidence and took on other ideas from my other group members. These ideas escalated and resulted in including an element of Bruce's idea, this has taught me that all ideas are important and should always take on board as you can improvise and include two concepts in one. I feel that my editing ability has grown to an extent as we explored as a group different types of effects which could have been used for the short film. I have learnt that you must not think of a typical story and that you must be creative and imaginative yet realistic when making a media product. Also I have learnt that each scene should be shot at least twice so you'll always have back up footage if you have to edit certain scenes. It was a mistake we made in the production and I will remember to do it next time.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of creating this funny yet touching short film. Although obstacles were hit we overcome them and continued positively to create a media product of our best ability.